Photo credit: “Architect Magazine”

Clark County is the most populous county in Nevada, accounting for 7% of the state’s land area, but 75% of the state’s population (2.267 million in 2019). Clark County understood the value of undertaking a comprehensive audit of the systems related to sustainability in an organizational environment. In turn, they engaged GRN Vision to provide an inventory of their operational sustainability status as of 2019 and their emissions inventory for 2018, before developing a long range sustainability plan.

Strategy

In February of 2020, GRN Vision began consulting with the Department of Environment and Sustainability at Clark County to conduct an in-person Sustainability Audit. In March as the
pandemic shut down Nevada, GRN Vision pivoted and began conducting the audit virtually due to COVID-19. The building audits were in-person with a limited number of attendees. The
initial phase of the audit encompassed conducting background research and gathering information. GRN Vision reviewed previous reports, current and previous operational policies,
then provided relevant policy, procedure and/or process enhancements that would make an immediate impact.

The on-site and virtual meetings were held with every department within Clark County. Throughout the meetings, operations and maintenance practices were evaluated within the departments to assess best practices that were in place and that could be shared interdepartmentally. Benchmarking, sustainability metrics, land use and resource management policies were also reviewed as a baseline. Clark County Real Property Management oversees hundreds of buildings that comprise over 3 million square feet of space. In order to accurately access an organization of this size, GRN Vision conducted onsite building assessments to review the physical facilities and opportunities for improvement. A full emissions inventory for 2018 was prepared by the GRN Vision team. That inventory was then compared to the emissions baseline from 2007 provided in the Clark County Eco Initiative.

Results

The results of the comprehensive audit allowed GRN Vision to put together a Sustainability Workplan to highlight where Clark County is currently operating and potential next steps. Following the sustainability inventory, Clark County approved their Sustainability Plan within 6 months. By taking on this process, Clark County has demonstrated their leadership and is now well on their way to meet their goal of reducing energy use by 20% and helping the state of Nevada to drastically reduce emissions.